Most persons that test their blood glucose level must do so several times per day. Therefore, for convenience, biosensors are typically packaged together for multiple tests by a user. Often, persons who must test their blood glucose level are afflicted with reduced or poor eyesight and/or limited hand dexterity. These conditions make it more difficult for these persons to see and grasp a single test strip or biosensor from a stack of many test strips. There are many types of test strip containers that store multiple test strips and dispense the test strips one at a time.
Various types of test strip containers store a stack of test strips in a housing and manually dispense a single test strip from the stack. One test strip container includes an engagement mechanism that frictionally engages a top surface of a test strip by applying a vertical force and a horizontal force to the topmost test strip to move a single test strip in a horizontal direction relative to the housing to dispense the single test strip. One problem with this type of engagement mechanism is the engagement mechanism must apply a sufficient vertical force and a sufficient horizontal force to the test strip in order to move the test strip. If a sufficient force in either direction is not applied then a test strip is not dispensed. If too much of a force in either direction is applied then it is possible that multiple test strips will be dispensed thereby creating waste.
Another type of test strip container includes a pusher head that projects by more than the thickness of a test strip. The projected portion of the pusher head engages a rear edge of a single test strip to push the single test strip out an opening of the test strip container. Accordingly, the pusher head must be manufactured to very specific dimensions and tolerances. One problem is the components of the container must be assembled to a very tight tolerance such that the projection of the pusher head is very close to or the same as the width of the single test strip. If either the assembly of the components or manufacture of the pusher head is not correct or within specified tolerances then this results in misalignment of the components of the test strip container and correspondingly malfunction of the test strip container.
Thus, there is a need for improvement in this field.